


friends don't look at friends (that way)

by ProfoundlyInLove



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teachers, Bad childhood implied, Chaotic Clurphy Vibes, F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Pregnancy, Twisted sister parallels, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:02:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25884052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfoundlyInLove/pseuds/ProfoundlyInLove
Summary: Clarke and Murphy were a package deal. Bellamy always knew that.He didn't know he would be signing up for giving up his bed at any odd hour of the night for the rest of his life.It was still worth it.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Clarke Griffin & John Murphy, Emori/John Murphy (The 100)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 220





	friends don't look at friends (that way)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Every Lifetime I Meet You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25769143) by [ProfoundlyInLove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfoundlyInLove/pseuds/ProfoundlyInLove). 



> expanded version of Lifetime 4 from Every Lifetime I Meet You

The day Bellamy Blake met Clarke Griffin, his world shifted, and it hasn’t shifted back since. They’d been friends from day one, and it was a chaotic friendship at best. Everything that involved Clarke was chaotic. 

She’d sat next to him in a bar and told him his beer was shit and ordered him a new one. In her defense, her choice ended up being his new favorite. Later that night she pierced another guy's ear in the women's bathroom while his girlfriend held him down. Bellamy later learned that they were Mr. Murphy, the shop teacher, and Ms. Emori, the new student teacher for Reyes in mechanics. 

He hadn’t known that when he went home with Clarke that night and slept in her tub after he had a few too many to drive himself home.

Clarke was apparently a permanent designated driver, but always had impeccable alcohol recommendations. It was another thing about her that was just strange and fascinating. 

When he showed up for his first day at the new school, he didn’t even see a hint of them until the school pep assembly where they put the teachers on teams, and he saw Clarke and Murphy wearing silly hand painted t-shirts that said Team Clurphy, the look of determination on their faces as they held cream pies. They were ready for action.

It made him feel young again.

He didn’t get the cream completely out of his hair until he got home that day to shower, and the smile stayed even longer. 

Bellamy was really glad he’d taken the job recommendation from Raven.

He might even dare to call Clarke his best friend, but he was pretty sure Murphy would deck him for that. 

“We’ve got a ship name to maintain, Blake. Don’t make me break all those fifteen year old hearts!”

Bellamy would just roll his eyes. 

But in the bright, disappointing light of a hungover morning, Bellamy Blake is sure that he has sunk a ship. From the chatter of the high schoolers, it had already sunk when they caught Mr. Murphy kissing Ms. Emori in the janitor's closet. 

He’d been working at Arkadia High School for over two years and he was sure he was going to be even deeper in the rumor pool now.

The first thing he smells is the lavender of her shampoo, and it calms every part of him. His arm was draped over the bare skin of her waist, and his eyes flickered open to the bright light and blonde hair.

_ Drinks with Lincoln and Octavia. Showing up at Clarke’s door professing his love. Her refusing to sleep with him when he was so drunk and that if he still was in love with her in the morning they could talk. The way she laughed when he looked sad and let him lay in the bed with her to sleep. _

The only regret he had was mixing wine and liquor. 

He couldn’t find it in himself to regret waking up like this in a million years.

Clarke’s alarm started blaring at full volume, barely stirring her. Now he knew for certain why she was always running late in the morning for the first bell with a giant thermos of coffee. She slept like the dead.

When she finally stirred, a moment of realization dawned on her and her eyes opened like saucers.

Over eggs and two cups of coffee Bellamy tried to sound casual, “Last night can mean something, if you want it to.”

“Let’s say that it does, what does it change?” Clarke asked carefully, sipping at her third cup.

“I don’t need to be your boyfriend, I just wanna be your something. Can I be your something?”

He was her something from that day on.

Even on the days she wanted to pay Murphy to smuggle him off to Mexico and leave him there. Bellamy wasn’t sure if she was joking about that. He also wasn’t sure if Murphy was capable. Which left in a slight predicament. Or the days where they would yell until their voices grew hoarse over the way they put the dishes away. 

Even when Murphy would kick him out of Clarke’s bed at all hours and expect him to go find something else to do while he talked off Clarke’s ear about God knew what. He usually ended up grading papers while Clarke and Murphy spent hours talking, yelling, and crying. Bellamy bought that bed, technically. He also bought the beer that Murphy always stole when he was around. 

Now that Bellamy thought about it, he bought a lot of stuff in this apartment. He couldn’t even remember the last time he spent the night in his own bed. Though he was pretty sure it was when Emori gave the three of them food poisoning trying to make fish and he was banned from the premises because Murphy had shouted, “Cockroach club meeting, get out!” and threw a pillow straight at his head. The apartment smelled like rotting fish vomit for weeks. 

He didn’t even want to think about having an official move in conversation.

Part of him was pretty sure she wouldn’t even notice if he did move in. It wouldn’t change much, anyway. 

Change was something Clarke was not a fan of.

When he packed up the rest of his valuables and closed out his lease, he came back home to Clarke like everything was normal. But in his head, he decided he was home.

Bellamy was pretty sure this was what content felt like.

Now when Clarke (or Murphy) throws him out of the apartment completely, he usually sleeps on his sisters sofa. 

His sister was definitely not Clarke fan number one, neither was his Mom. 

Bellamy had always been the stable, reliable guy. Didn’t get in trouble, did great in high school, got a full ride to a respectable but mid range university and graduated at the top of his class. Taught history at the high school he’d gone to himself.

School is a lot different from the teacher's perspective, he quickly learned. Some teachers were the same, and others were new and young like himself. 

His family wanted him to be with someone who had those same accomplishments, or just the same goals for the future.

Clarke didn’t have a traditional college education. She’d been accepted to Stanford for Pre-med but decided not to go, choosing to work on her art. The Principal was an old family friend and gave her a job doing after school art programs at first. Eventually she proved herself and got certified to teach in an actual classroom. She dreamed with childlike wonder and never let someone else's idea of reality stop her from accomplishing her dreams. She sold and traded art on the side, some her own originals, and others offloaded from other artists in the area looking to sell. 

Her goals weren’t what a Mom wanted to hear over Sunday dinner, they were the kind you whispered to your lover in the dark with your heads propped on pillows. Something so personal and true to herself that other people couldn’t imagine saying out loud. 

Clarke didn’t change just to make other people like her. She had a firm self image and didn’t care if her personality was too much for some people.

It was the kind of thing that Bellamy had always envied. 

Octavia didn’t dislike her as a person. But she definitely was vocal that someone like Clarke didn’t stay in one place forever.

Bellamy sometimes wondered if they expected him to stay in one place forever.

He wouldn’t mind seeing a new slice of the world, learning a new phrase or ten. Sit on a beach somewhere that the water was so clear you could see the bottom. See where the colosseum stood. Try out living somewhere other than the place he’d been his entire life.

Bellamy was sitting on the couch grading papers on the Roman Empire when Murphy came in, unlocking the door with a key that Bellamy had never even seen before. He got a nod as Murphy went straight for the fridge for a beer, knocking it against the counter in a swift motion to pop the cap off.

“Where’s Clarke?” 

Bellamy laughed, “She’s with Emori, and apparently not you. I guess the dicks weren’t invited.” he said with a tongue in cheek smile. 

“Very funny. I have shit going on and you go on making ‘Murphy’s a dick’ jokes, its low hanging fruit, Blake. We know. I know you have car tracking with your new insurance, so help me.” Murphy said, motioning for him to hand over his cell phone that was on the coffee table in front of him.

“You want me to spy on Clarke so you can find her to bitch about your problems?” Bellamy asked with a confused, shocked, but still amazed look on his face. Murphy was never once called a wuss, that was a given.

“Pretty much.”

Bellamy sighed, pointing for Murphy to sit in the recliner adjacent to the couch that Clarke usually used for naps. 

“Talk to me first before you make me stalk my girlfriend, please.”

Murphy snorted as he sat down with a lack of grace, “Oh so you're the boyfriend now? Scandalos!” Murphy joked with a heavy sarcastic tone that made Bellamy roll his eyes and consider throwing him out for once.

It would feel good to be on the other side of the lock for once.

“We aren’t here for Clarke’s label issues, we’re here for your… whatever?” 

Murphy snorted again and Bellamy’s patience was already wearing thin. He had no idea how Clarke put up with him so much. 

He knew why, but definitely not how. 

“I don’t think you’re going to understand, Bellamy, honestly.” Murphy answered with a shrug and sip of his beer. He put his feet on the coffee table like he was right at home.

“Just try me, and if I don’t get it, I’ll stalk Clarke for you. Deal?” Bellamy offered.

He ended up telling Murphy that the girls were at Shake Shack, because Bellamy in fact did  _ not _ understand the complicated issues of death anniversaries of abusive alcoholic parents. Murphy stole another beer on his way out and Bellamy earned another nod.

Progress.

Clarke had warned him early on that Murphy took a long time to warm up to someone. He hadn’t expected it to take quite this long. But they weren’t stagnant.

Bellamy knew that Clarke and Murphy were a package deal, and by extension Emori. You couldn’t split it down the middle because the line was so blurred that you didn’t know where one began and the other ended. 

When Murphy got too drunk on the extremely rare occasion he would have more than three beers, he would call their relationship  _ toxic trauma bonding _ .

Bellamy could understand the reasoning. They’d met as teenagers in court mandated teen alcoholics anonymous and decided to make their relationship not so anonymous. They both had a parent die, and the other turn to either pills or booze to feel better. Neither of them could see a light at the end of their tunnel, and the court gave them another chance. 

When you walk out of a pit with someone, you tend to have their back through a lot less.

She could always tell him the best drink at the bar, but she never drank a drop.

Clarke was sometimes jealous that Murphy could limit himself. She knew that if she started, she couldn’t stop. She didn’t think about drinking every second of the day like she did as a depressed fifteen year old, but she didn’t want to tempt fate.

Fate was cruel and unforgiving.

  
  


They’d officially been moved in together, at least according to Bellamy, for two months, when Clarke actually realized he’d moved in.

“You didn’t like how things were?” She asked, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee in front of her, already growing cold from neglect. 

Bellamy smiled at her, his heart pounding in his ears a little. “I loved how they were, so why not keep doing it? Just if I didn’t resign, I’d save nine hundred a month. We could get soda instead of water at Applebees and be fancy.” He said with a light joking tone.

He knew why change scared her. He knew why labels weren’t really a thing for them. But it didn’t mean he cared any less. 

He could be her something just as easily under the same roof, legally speaking. 

“Does it change anything?” 

Bellamy shook his head, “Only if you want it to.”

“Okay.”

Clarke made sure to put out two cups of coffee the next morning before Bellamy woke up, just to show she was acknowledging that he’d be there in the morning.

She usually trusted it from that day on.

Bellamy liked being able to sleep an extra few minutes before waking up for work. It was definitely a good change in his book. 

She stopped asking if he’d be there in the morning and it made a little piece of his heart warm up. 

Murphy kicked him out of bed at two in the morning about three months after he moved in, and that’s when he learned that Octavia’s couch really was comfortable. 

He came home the next morning to three beer bottles on his coffee table, and a litter of clothes and junk food leading to the bedroom where they both slept comfortably. 

He wondered when it would be Emori’s turn to deal with this.

He put on a full pot of coffee while he waited for Clarke’s normal alarm to wake them for work. Bellamy had already showered and shaved for work at Octavia’s house, and busied himself with making breakfast when he heard the grumbling begin down the hall.

Murphy sat at their kitchen table without pants and eyeliner smeared like a racoon. Clarke wasn’t much better, drool crusted to her face and he was pretty sure Murphy had spilled beer on her white tank top, and the boxers she wore had silly emojis on them. They definitely weren’t his, but he didn’t even want to know the answer.

“I am too old for clubbing, why did I do that?” Murphy mumbled.

“Why was the after party my bed?” Bellamy asked with a chuckle. Clarke blushed and hid her smile behind her hand as she took a coffee from Bellamy. 

“Murphy’s having a mid life crisis.”

“He’s too young for that,” Bellamy scoffed.

“Thank you, Blake! I needed that healthy dose of self image this morning. Do I get eggs?”

Murphy got eggs.

Clarke went to an AA meeting that day. 

They didn’t talk about how she’d been sober for eleven years to the day.

Or that her Mom would be dead for twelve.

Clarke added a new chip to her colorful collection in her art drawer silently, and closed it without letting the weight of it land on her shoulders.

The cashier at the grocery store called them a cute couple and Clarke blushed all the way home.

They still didn’t talk about that either.

“Why change anything if everything is already perfect?” She’d ask in the darkness of their bedroom, the only time she gave herself the confidence to speak her darkest thoughts into the world. 

“What if they could be even better?”

“I can’t imagine a world where things could be better.”

It didn’t matter, not really, that she refused to put a label on it. He still got to call their home theirs. Sleep in a bed with her, most nights anyway. He got to hear her darkest thoughts in the dark hours of night, not anyone else.

They’d lived together for four months when it slipped out.

“Be safe, love you.”

“What did you just say?”

Clarke had been half way out the door when it came out and it collided into her world like a canon, stopping her dead in her tracks.

Bellamy froze for a moment before relaxing into an easy chuckle. He was going to have to microwave his coffee this morning. Clarke was going in early to meet with the board about the arts budget and Bellamy had barely stirred by the time she was walking out.

“You heard me, Princess. Be safe, you know, don’t crash into a pole? I don’t know. And I love you, always, that’s a given.”

“Bellamy Blake we have had this discussion before!” 

“Don’t say it back, I don’t expect you to. I know what I feel and I’m okay with saying it outloud. It doesn’t have to change anything.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

“Okay.”

She was on time for her meeting but Bellamy still had to microwave his coffee.

He said it a lot after that.

She only said it when sleep was so close that her words slurred and her eyes were fluttering shut.

Bellamy was okay with that.

Clarke and Murphy were having a screaming match seven months after he moved in, and Bellamy decided that it wasn’t worth the effort to understand what they were fighting about.

He sat on the couch while they fought in the kitchen. The television blocked out enough of the noise.

“I am not hormonal, don't even pull that card on me John Murphy!”

“Well at least I’m not a chicken shit! I bought it, put the whole damn thing on a credit card with zero percent interest like a fucking adult, Griffin!”

“She’ll say yes, you dumbass!”

The Seahawks won against the 49ers, and Murphy broke his favorite plate.

He supposed the evening was well rounded. 

Clarke was grading assignments in her classroom when Murphy came in through his door on the other side of the split room.

“Have you bought a test yet?”

“No.”

“You can’t pretend it’s not real, Clarke. It’s been a month.”

She was thirty seven days late but who was counting. Besides herself.

Clarke Griffin was like a match to Bellamy’s gasoline covered life. He was always a sucker for lighting himself on fire to keep others warm, and she looked so beautiful in the light of the fire. How was he supposed to resist?

When people asked who Clarke Griffin was to him, he told them various answers, “an addiction”, “bad habit”, “high of a lifetime.”

All of them were so damn true.

That’s how he ended up locked out of his apartment at two in the morning waiting in the hallway, praying that there is a God and he’ll knock some sense into her and let him inside. 

They were in a perpetual cycle of fighting, and then love until the fight came back out. She’s seen every deep dark corner of himself that he hides from the light, and she hasn’t gone running yet. So he definitely wasn’t going to be bailing on her either.

She was chaos, art, and destructive beauty, and it was like staring at the sun.

It made him feel so alive. Why did people need drugs?

Clarke was arguing with Murphy in their living room and had been for two hours about God knows what. He was her best friend, and Bellamy had no idea why. It wasn’t exactly out of their usual and he didn’t hear anything breaking.

Sometimes Bellamy just didn’t understand their dynamic. 

He'd met an artist in a bar with blonde curls and smudged black eyeshadow and a strong opinion on the beer he was drinking, and he was hooked.

It wasn’t a life that he was exactly proud to call home about considering how his mother was out and proud about being on team “anyone but Clarke”, but it was a good one. Most of the time, just not when Murphy came and kicked him out of his own bed in the middle of the night to talk to Clarke. Bellamy assumed it was about Emori, because that was what came out of Murphy’s mouth at least seventy-five percent of the time.

When things quieted down, Bellamy came back inside and found the two asleep. Three beer bottles squashed together on the floor by the couch where they both were curled up.

Whatever happened was over now, and he was going to bed. He had to be up for school in the morning, and the kids always think it’s okay to leave if their teacher is late because their college freshman older siblings told them they could.

In all other areas of his life, Bellamy was a stand up respectable guy, he would like to think. He taught history at the local high school, he helped out with at risk projects, he even watched his nephew for Octavia while she was easing back into work post baby.

Most people just ignored that he was just hopelessly pining for the weird art teacher who refused to call him her boyfriend.

Clarke wasn’t the girl you brought home for a healthy normal Christmas. Then again, Clarke had decided that Christmas was meaningless for her anyway a long time ago. So he’d visit his family alone while Clarke and Murphy stayed in together while Murphy would be drinking the winter break away with whatever shitty low shelf vodka they could mix with slushies. Clarke’s mouth would be stained red from all the cherry slushies and Murphy would smell like someone you’d pick up at the drunk tank. He never really drank more than three beers unless it was winter break. That was his moral exception to the rule. Clarke made sure he didn’t drown himself in his own vomit for Emori and showered him before returning him home.

Murphy was the shop teacher at the high school and his classroom was connected to the art room since they had some overlapping equipment. In the beginning, Bellamy felt jealous of Murphy. But then Emori started student teaching under Raven for their mechanics class, and it was like Murphy’s world stopped on its axis. 

They fought like wet cats, and screwed like cats in heat. So they fit rather well, if Bellamy was thinking about it.

Bellamy draped a blanket over the pair, kissed the top of Clarke’s head, and walked back to their bedroom and slept in their bed alone that night.

They didn’t get much of a chance to talk until their lunch break at work the next day. Clarke was sitting at her desk with her bagged lunch, looking a lot more put together than the night before. Her hair was curled and had tinges of color from when she let Emori experiment on it. Her dress was respectable, but it made him feel a bit crazy. Everything about her made him crazy, though.

The way she’d paint at four in the morning with a cigarette behind her ear that she never seemed to light. Or how she danced to hipster softy songs in the kitchen when she thought no one was listening. The way she’d whisper his name against his skin and he’d feel like he was home.

Miller always warned him that loving her would destroy him. Bellamy didn’t really doubt it. Clarke wasn’t someone who stuck around forever, her spirit wasn’t connected to land like everyone else's. 

Sometimes he envied that.

His sister could be like that sometimes.

Sometimes he could understand why Lincoln was the way he was.

Loving someone with that much freedom in their soul makes you a cautious man.

“Emori said yes.” Clarke said casually, opening up her lunch bag, offering him the apple from the top.

“To what?” Bellamy asked, taking the apple without thinking, taking a large bite. He was pretty sure he forgot the lunch she packed for him on the counter.

She always made him lunch. Holding notes with hearts, x’s and o’s, and small doodles of them together on the bright yellow of the sticky note. Her way of showing she knew he’d be there for the next one.

He kept every single note in a box in their closet.

She pretended she didn’t notice.

“Murphy proposed.” Clarke deadpanned, as if it were obvious.

“And.. What was he doing yelling for over two hours in our living room?” He questioned, his eyebrow ticked up in intrigue. Any time he tried to understand them, he only ended up with more questions than any answers.

“He had a moment, cold feet, and I told him he was an idiot. We fought about it for a while, he got over it, he had a few beers and we knocked out. Sorry about that, by the way.” Clarke said with a sympathetic frown on her face.

She knew she was messy. She was a complication that most people wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole. She had all the giant warning signs that boys talk about. Daddy issues, mommy issues, against the system issues, just… issues. 

But Bellamy always came crawling back for his fix. 

There was a flick of blue paint in that soft spot of her neck below her ear and he couldn’t help but smile. 

Clarke looked nervous but smiled anyway, “Having a life together permanently wouldn’t be horrible.”

Bellamy snorted, “If the idea sounded horrible, I would have never moved in.”

“Cool.” Clarke said short and cool with an emotionless smile before she picked up her phone that hadn’t vibrated, “I need to go talk to Murphy and Emori. Wedding shit already, you know. But meet me in the parking lot after you finish today?”

Bellamy looked at her questioningly but ignored it.

She moved quickly and left him with an apple and his thoughts.

Did she want him to propose? It’s not that he was against it, but Clarke never seemed like the marriage kind of girl. They had only lived together for eight months, but had been together for two, known each other for four.

It wasn’t that far of a stretch. For a normal girl anyway.

He would like to buy a house first, save for a proper wedding, actually propose, plan it all out. Do it the right way for her. He wanted her to have the life she never thought she could. 

Bellamy obsessed about it all day until he was sitting in their car waiting for Clarke to meet him in the parking lot to leave for the day.

He started calling when she was ten minutes late, thinking she must have got sucked into a painting and forgot what time it was.

Bellamy started looking after twenty minutes of silence.

She wasn’t in her classroom, Murphy’s, or Emori’s. Raven had already left for the day and locked their office up.

Teachers lounge was deserted.

He found Murphy in the cafeteria, breaking the lock to the dessert fridge.

“Report me and I’ll make your life hell, Blake.”

Bellamy rolled his eyes, but he knew that Murphy could easily kick him out of his own bed for a sleepover with his girlfriend every night for the next month.

Emori always joked that it was chaotic Clurphy energy. She wasn’t far off. But she wasn’t getting kicked out of bed, either. Bellamy always thought he got the short end of the stick on this foursome. Kicked out of his own bed for Murphy to come bitch about Emori, and vice versa. They drank all of his beer, enjoyed the overpriced mattress, and stole his girl. It’s just rude.

“I don’t care if you want an extra cup of jello, I can’t find Clarke. Checked everywhere and she’s not answering the phone.”

Murphy had an instant look of panic that he tried to reign in, but not nearly quick enough.

“What’s wrong?” Bellamy asked, worried and upset that Murphy just chose to ignore the fact that he cared about Clarke even more than he did.

“Dude I am not the one giving you the news. Staff bathroom, Emori’s outside trying to talk Clarke out. I’m getting  _ pudding _ as a bribe, thank you. I’m offended you thought I wanted the shit jello.” Murphy huffed as the lock finally broke, letting the fridge fly open. He grabbed two servings of chocolate pudding, and shoved a brownie into Bellamy’s hands after his own filled. “I got a fiancee to impress, fuck off.”

They both walked towards the staff bathroom at a fast pace, Murphy juggling the pudding in his hands.

Just as Murphy had said, Emori was outside the bathroom with a frustrated, upset look on her face. 

Murphy looked disappointed, and looked at Bellamy expectantly as he eyed the brownie.

Bellamy gave Emori a weak smile as he handed her the brownie and she looked grateful.

Murphy pounded on the door with his elbow, “I’ve got two chocolate pudding, wanna let me in now?”

The door unlocked and opened just enough to see a sliver of Clarke before she slammed it back shut, “I told you no Bellamy!” She shouted, snapping the door locked again.

“He’s worried about your dumbass, you didn’t leave. Where else would he be?” Murphy snarked back, kicking the door. 

“Tell him what I said, Emori!” Clarke shouted again, sounding even more upset. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was crying. He didn’t even know what was going on. He’d woken up this morning to utter normal, and it was ending it chaos.

“Um... “ Emori trailed off, looking at Bellamy with a nervous expression. She gave John a look that said  _ bad idea. _

“She’s knocked up and hormonal, okay? If you don’t want it, you can leave and we’ll help her, if you want to stay, you’re welcome to.” Murphy snapped, still holding two chocolate puddings in hand.

Panic was the first word that Bellamy could find to describe how he was feeling.

She didn’t want him to propose. She was pregnant.

Murphy snorted when he saw Bellamy’s eyes were as wide as saucers.

“You’re the one that stuck it in crazy, dude. You know how babies are made.” Murphy laughed, rolling his neck to release the tension all the stress was causing. He took the plastic top of one of the puddings and dipped his finger in for a quick taste.

“It tastes so good, Clarke! Chocolate!” He shouted.

“She has an implant!” Bellamy whisper-shouted, hoping that Clarke couldn’t hear his panic.

“They call it ninety-nine percent effective for a reason.” Emori added, not so helpfully, as she bit into the brownie with glee.

“Look, Bellamy. There’s absolutely no good time for a baby. If you don’t want it, bail out now. We’ll handle this. But if you want to stay, then remember where your balls are and tell her.” Murphy said cooly, taking another lick of pudding loudly in hopes of tempting Clarke out.

She must be really hormonal if Murphy thinks chocolate pudding is enough to get Clarke Griffin out of a room that she doesn’t want to leave.

“Princess, you listening? I’ll take the door down if I have to. I don’t think Principal Kane would be super happy about it. You’d rather get an extra long maternity leave for being the best art teacher ever and Shake Shack on the way home, right?” Bellamy asked with a small, silly smile. Kane loved Clarke, she could get a year sabbatical without even batting her eyelashes at him.

“This is the end of the world and you’re offering me Shake Shack?” Clarke yelled back at him through the door and he sighed. 

“Of course I thought of Shake Shack,” Murphy grumbled unhelpfully as he really started to dig into his pudding. He’d slidden down to sit next to Emori on the tile floor, letting her dip her brownie into the chocolate sludge. 

“Does she really think that I’m going to leave?” Bellamy asked quietly, eying the couple.

“Give me a good reason why you won’t and not that it’s your kid because honestly in this world, that doesn’t really mean that much. Why do you pick her? Because she sure as shit doesn’t know why and she thinks this is game over for her.” Murphy said seriously, vibrating with a silent anger. He saw the way he calmed as Emori slipped her hand over his arm with a warm shushing sound. 

“Do you pick her? Or do you pick the baby? Or are you picking her because there is a baby? Would you pick her if she decided she couldn’t do this?” Emori asked and a calm, soft tone.

Bellamy let his back slide against the wood of the door, letting the silence echo in his head.

She didn’t even know. He’s been with her all this time and she doesn’t even know.

_ “Don’t feel bad about leaving me here.” _

The tiniest whisper in Bellamy’s brain made him think for a moment. Clarke’s relationships in life pretty much always ended. They either died, or left her all alone. He thinks about the snarky comments she makes about Murphy on days where they’ve had a bad fight and she says that  _ he’s off with his other best friend.  _ When Emori cancels their last minute plans and Clarke frowns for just a second too long. 

She doesn’t trust anyone to stay.

Bellamy turns his head into the door to speak, “My Mom doesn’t really like you. She thinks you’re too much drama. I told her you had fire and it made me feel alive. She thinks eventually I’ll be so burnt that there’s nothing to keep the fire alive. I didn’t leave when she said that. Octavia likes you a lot, but she doesn’t think we’ll last. She worries the same about her and Lincoln, though. They’re married and have a whole ass kid that talks. I didn’t leave when she said that, either.” Bellamy started, trying to keep his tone light and silly, making sure it didn’t come across wrong. He couldn’t see anything else, just the door, the whole world disappeared. 

“Those people are pretty high on my list, you know that. So I’m not going to leave you for something stupid. I definitely won’t leave you if you’re pregnant, and not for some messed up codependent reason. I don’t want to be anywhere that you aren’t, and if that means we have a baby? Sign me up. But I’d rather not hyphenate the names, it’s a mouthful. It’d be easier if we had the same last name, but that’s not something to worry about right now--” The door shifted against his weight and he started falling back and fell back into the soft skin that he’d memorized in the dark every chance he could.

“Your Mom has bad taste in art but a very insightful view of people.” Clarke mumbled with a silly tone. 

Bellamy breathes a sigh of relief. “You said you loved the stuff she picked out at your show!” He chuckled. 

“Can I plead the fifth?” Clarke whispered, and he just nodded. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in tight. 

“There’s a baby inside of you.” Bellamy laughed, a sob ripping through him. It hit him when he saw the boxes of pregnancy tests on the bathroom floor. Multiple tests that all had small pink plus signs on them.

“Yeah, what do you want to do about that?” Clarke asked nervously.

“Don’t let me give it a mythology name, Octavia made me promise when we were kids.”

“I’m not making a promise that I can’t keep. I don’t need to give Octavia any more reasons to not like me.”

“This doesn’t have to change anything,” Bellamy mumbled into her skin, trying to give her comfort.

It scared Clarke when it didn’t comfort her at all.

“What if I want it to?”

She let him call himself her boyfriend from then on. He mentioned it obnoxiously to the sonographer every chance he got as they watched their baby grow bigger and bigger.

When they found out it was a girl, Murphy still swore up and down they could name her Murphy.

They named her Madi and looked at her like she was what made the Earth spin.

It changed everything.

(In the best ways possible.)

Emori and Murphy got married in the park with a random guy off craigslist as the officiant. Clarke stood by with a baby in her arms in Bellamy at her side as her best friend got married.

Maybe marriage wasn’t horrible.

She didn’t think about it again until she was pregnant again.

“I want to have the same last name as our kids.” She whispered, the room was dark and quiet.

They’d only moved into the new home a few weeks ago, before they even knew Clarke was pregnant again. Bellamy had already picked out which room would be the nursery.

“I think you’d have to marry me to do that, Princess.”

“Maybe that is what I was suggesting, Mr. Blake.”

She was eight months pregnant when the school changed the plague on her desk to Mrs. Blake. 

Having the same last name as the kids had its pros.

Being married might also have pros, besides the fantastic tax deductions they could now do.

Clarke realized on Christmas how different life really was. 

It wasn’t just watching Murphy get plastered over winter break wishing for school to start again. It wasn’t about loneliness and ghosts. 

Augustus started lightly pulling on Octavia and Lincoln’s newborns hair and Clarke gently took his hand and whispered, “No August, soft touch. We only touch people with soft nice touches.”

Murphy was busy sorting the presents before the kids could start shrieking about wanting to open them, and Emori was distracting their son and Octavia’s oldest while Madi sat in the recliner with her grandma.

When Clarke’s parents died, she never thought about having kids, especially not that they would grow up calling someone else grandma, and Grandpa was just a ghost that Clarke held close to her.

When she looked into Augustus soft, gentle features, she saw a lot of Bellamy in him. Strong, courageous, brave, and smart. But if she looked deep enough into her son's eyes, she could see her dad smiling back at her.

Bellamy looked at her with a soft smile with a cup of coffee in his hands, “You glad it meant something?”

“It means everything.”

Bellamy was on fire, and he was a fire that could burn for a millennium. He just hoped Clarke Griffin would always be there to feed his fire.

Who else was he supposed to keep warm?


End file.
